The 10 byte string in gzencode is the standard gzip header. The first two bytes (1f 8b) define the return as a gzip file, the third byte (08) means that the body is compressed using the "deflate" algorithm. The rest is padding (00)'s.

Technically, I believe one should check if the third byte is hex 08 and if so strip off the first ten bytes and last four bytes and run inflate on it. The last four bytes are file size and checksum bits.

In practice, you can get away with just stripping the first 10 bytes and running inflate on it.

It's only ugly point is that it does not check to see if the file already exists. You may also have to adjust reference names like $str and $fd if they stomp on your code. (Sorry, but this is all you get atm! ;} ) If your conserned about a race condition, cry for a internal gzdecode() function that actualy functions...
I spent about 3 hours straight debugging this problem. I know the input data was valid, becuase I validated it with MD5() to compare to the md5's I had made of the input data before hand. I'm not sure whats up with gzuncompress or gzinflate, but this works in its place . . .